A forum for intentional words by women on wildness, wilderness and outdoor adventure.
I got the email from my dad six weeks ago. It was characteristically sparse: We just sold the farmhouse and 6 acres. Closing targeted for Nov. 1. I had known it was coming but couldn't bear to talk about it. Losing this place was something I couldn't quite stomach or breathe past; I told my parents I …
Consider the fall. I caught a leaf the other day as it tumbled to the ground. Bright, crisp, cool to the touch, it interrupted my thoughts and jog and turned me into the littlest-girl version of myself: red cheeks skyward, grinning at the whimsy of the situation. This fallen fairy had chosen me--me!--as her intermediary between arboreal life and earthly decay. What …
September, ember, member, re-member. Voluptuous word and season. This month at Jamaica Bay, monarch caterpillars hang fat and plentiful on milkweed leaves. Their return (or departure?) seems late but I can't be sure; I've waited so long for them, but what, in a time of progressive hotness, is "in season" anymore? All I know is how …
You've probably heard that this summer marks the hundredth birthday of the U.S. National Parks. You've seen commemorative books, read about celebrities' favorite park picks, and followed social media campaigns urging you to "Find Your Park." But they've spun it wrong, or at least misleadingly. This is not the parks' anniversary year; the earliest …
We strive for polish--then life creeps in, smudges the words. Truthifies 'em. I write from the heat of an urban midsummer, dry in the fount and muggy in the eyes, sapped and taxed by the living so far away from the places, people, mountains, deserts, and waters who sustain me. There was a place, a …
Writing the Wild 